Gita 02.44 – Prevent attachment from abducting consciousness by intelligence and taste

Future sessions. Thank you. Bhagavad Gita 2.44 Those who are attached to bhoga and aishwarya, and prasadta is strongly attached.

And the consciousness is abducted by this attachment. Apaharata. Apaharan is used for kidnapping.

One-pointed intelligence. Krishna had talked about this in 2.41, where he said, those who are one-pointed, their intelligence becomes, those who are determined, those who are single-minded, their intelligence becomes single-pointed. So, that yavasayatmika vritti, that one determined intelligence, doesn t come about.

Samadhau can be related to samadhi, and it can be related to samadhan. Samadhan means satisfaction. Samadhi is the state of supreme satisfaction.

It refers to the state of absorption in the divine, in the supreme spiritual light, in the supreme spiritual truth. So, the satisfaction in one-pointed intelligence doesn t come about. Basically, one does not get one-pointed intelligence.

Now, the point is that Krishna is telling here that if you want to pursue the transcendental path, then you have to give up attachment to bhoga and aishwarya, to sensual indulgence and worldly opulence, financial opulence. So, why is he saying something like this? Because bhoga aishwarya prasaktanam. Now, in this world, there are two great sources of pleasure, or at least the thought of a great source of pleasure.

One is wealth and the other is sex. Hiranyakashipu, his name had both these two included. Hiranya is gold, which has always been the symbol of wealth.

And Kashipu is bed. Now, bed is the symbol of sexual enjoyment. So, Hiranyakashipu was a person who delighted in wealth and sexual enjoyment.

In that sense, bhoga and aishwarya, there are two things which he delighted in. Bhoga is Kashipu and aishwarya is Hiranya. So, now these are two things which promise to be pleasurable and which drag and trap our consciousness at the material level.

Because to enjoy sensual gratification, to enjoy sex, one has primarily sensual gratification centered around sex, although there are other forms of sensual gratification also. But sex is what most has read, is centered on. So, prasaktanam, one is attached to that and the consciousness gets trapped at the material level.

And one cannot rise to a higher level of consciousness, because one can't think of anything higher only. Just like a person may be in a room and in that room, a movie is being played and the person is hooked to the movie. Now, although there are other things to see in the room, but as long as the person's consciousness is hooked to the movie, the person doesn't even notice what else is there in the room.

Or in a movie theater, once a person starts watching the movie, the other lights go off, the lights in the screen go on and basically doesn't notice anything else. He just gets lost in the world of the movie, the illusion of the movie. So, like that bhogaishwar prasaktanam.

So, our consciousness gets abducted when we are attached. Daya apahartha chetasam. It says the attachment to say the romance or violence or adventure or mystery or whatever that is depicted in the movie, attachment to watching the movie and enjoying it makes a person oblivious to everything else, because the consciousness gets lost inside the movie, trapped inside the movie.

Similarly, as long as we desire this kind of worldly pleasures, worldly opulence and sensual indulgence, then our consciousness gets trapped in the body, dragged along with the body. So, because of that, the vivasayatmika buddhi, the one-pointed intelligence just doesn't come about. So, we as sadhakas, we all have desires and we can't just wish away our desires, but we can choose not to desire those desires.

Krishna used the word kamakami in 2.7d, later in this chapter itself, but here that the abduction of our consciousness, apahartha chetasam happens when we open the door to those attachments to come in. Those attachments are there. See, whenever we attach to something, it's like those corresponding desires, corresponding cravings are always there.

They are like outside the door or very close to the door, just outside. As soon as we are idle and we start craving for those pleasures, immediately those sort of promises for pleasure, they start rushing in and then we find it almost irresistible. They take over our consciousness and we get dragged towards those things.

So, still the point is that we don't have to open our consciousness to them. They are there, we know they are there, but we also know that acting in this way is undesirable, so I will not act in this way. And once we make that resolve and try our best to stick to that resolve, and by that we find that actually those particular temptations may come and go, but we will not go, we will stay fixed.

This does not mean that we become motionless in terms of not moving physically, although a battle with temptation may initially reduce us to that kind of wounded state, but if you remember that Krishna is stronger than any temptation, any conditioning, any illusion, and that actually whatever happens, He is always there for us. So, by having faith in Krishna's omnipotence, omnipotence doesn't just mean that He is all powerful and He can do anything, that often we think of, oh, He can go over the hill, that sort of thing, superhuman things He can do, but also His omnipotence means He can lift away things, He can remove things which we can't remove by ourselves. So, our attachments are sometimes very difficult for us to overcome, and Krishna helps us overcome those attachments first by giving us intelligence and then by giving us taste.

By intelligence, which comes from careful scriptural study, the scripture itself is a gift of Krishna, and the understanding of scripture that we get when we study scripture in association with Guru and Sadhu, then that understanding itself is a gift of Krishna, by which we start realizing the futility of mental enjoyment and the glory of spiritual fulfillment. And the more we intellectually grasp this, get this, the more that becomes a disimpetuous for pursuing sense objects, and it becomes impetus for pursuing Krishna, pursuing bhakti. And further, as we keep steadily practicing bhakti, we also get a higher taste, we start relishing devotional activities, and we experientially realize that the fulfillment from devotional activities is far greater than the best fulfillment from sensual activities.

And we realize that Krishna is our ultimate treasure, and we no longer let our consciousness get abducted by our attachments. The object that promotes the attachment may still be there, but we recognize that our consciousness is a treasure that is not to be skittered, flittered, that is not to be squandered away on things that will give only temporary pleasure, but rather that consciousness, when it is conscientiously offered to Krishna, then that will give us great happiness, greatest happiness, in fact. So, just as parents take care, so the mother takes care of her child and doesn't let the child go anywhere where the child may become abducted.

The mother acts as the guard of the child by training the child to stay away from dangers. So, our intelligence is like the mother, and our mind is like the child. So, once our intelligence becomes strong, then the mind, the intelligence guides the mind, don't go in these directions, don't go towards bhoga and ishwarya.

That doesn't mean that we don't have any enjoyment or no metopolis, but that we don't let these things entangle us. We use them as is appropriate and necessary for our existence in this world and for service to Krishna. But beyond that, we don't let ourselves harbor the illusion that they will make us happy.

We know that nothing except Krishna can make us happy. And as a child grows, the child may initially be attracted by a chocolate provided by a stranger. But as the child grows, the child realizes, oh, this stranger actually wants to harm me, will take me away from my loved ones in the name of giving me a chocolate.

Therefore, I will not accept chocolates. So, like that, when we recognize that actually these temptations take away from our greatest loved one Krishna, then we learn to stay away from those temptations. So, by this combination of intelligence and taste, we can overcome our attachments and keep.